Cracks

Rating:
Summary: Cracks
Review: "There is grease around our mouths, down to our chins; our lips are stained with red wine, our lipstick, smudged, our camouflage, undone."

Everything is indeed undone during a rather somber reunion of middle age women who once attended a small girls' school in an uninhabited corner of South Africa. Brought together by a persuasive letter from their elderly headmistress, an accordion-faced wisp of a woman who desperately needs money in order to save the school from destruction, the women have traveled from all corners of the world; one --- Sheila Kohler, both the author's and character's name --- from as far as America. It turns out the returning women have one thing in common --- they were all members of the school's elite swim team, hand picked by the bronze goddess, Miss G. Why they are the only ones chosen for this reunion is a mystery that is unraveled by the end of the novel, which swings back and forth from present to past until the harrowing conclusion.

The swim team, as well as the rest of the students, all live in near isolation at this school in the middle of the parched desert sands of South Africa. Without mothers to sing them to sleep, stroke their feverish faces, soothe their tremulous tears, these girls turn to the only woman they can find --- not the withered headmistress or the embittered biology teacher --- but the most female, the most headstrong, courageous, outrageous, beautiful woman, the one in charge of selecting the girls for the swim team, the almighty Miss G. But just as fast as she selects them, she throws them away and picks new ones when the old disappoint her. The final 12 girls she selects are the same ones invited to the reunion 40 years later. All attend except two, but there is still someone missing. The luminous and distant Fiamma, whose mysterious disappearance years ago haunts the school and continues to eat away at the swim team members.

Fiamma was the golden girl, literally --- her long flaxen strands stretched out and curled like a Princess's. Indeed that's what she supposedly was, born from a common mother and a regal Italian father. From the beginning, the girls were in awe of this seemingly perfect specimen, her delicate milky white skin, large almost clear blue eyes, willowy limbs, and long plaited golden hair. Maybe the other girls would have embraced her if she even pretended to care what they thought --- but she didn't. Always aloof, reserved, and mysterious, Fiamma didn't indulge in their games or secrets, and the girls despised this. It's not until later that they wonder if she was only waiting to be asked. All the adults, however, were enamored by Fiamma's luminosity and heritage, including the headmistress and especially Miss G, who after seeing her streamlined body gliding through the water like a sleek vessel, bribed her with sweets to join the swim team. Fiamma reluctantly consented and became the fastest girl on the team --- and Miss G's object of desire.

The book most often hovers in the past, but returns sporadically to the present, always through the collective voice of the girls in what writer's refer to as first person plural narration, a deceptively familiar voice, which always keeps the reader an arm's length distance away from the true inner thoughts of the characters. Because of this somewhat vague narration, when the reader finally pieces together the puzzle at the end and the truth crashes over like a wave, there is a moment of "How could I have not seen this coming?"

There are secrets hidden in every sentence of this haunting and at times horrifying book --- secrets that you aren't aware of until you reach the final pages. It's an ending that makes you pause, and then flip back through to see what you missed the first time around. The tautly told story with its tropical backdrop of sterile humidity is in great contrast to the young women's budding fecundity. Fiamma's fate is sealed from the first page, but to find out what happened, you have to make the journey with her and the rest of the girls who have returned to their school, not entirely of their own free will, to confront the past and to ensure the school a future.


--- Reviewed by Dana Schwartz



Rating:
Summary: Incredibly creepy for such a small book
Review: Compare this with Lord of the Flies, but with girls instead of boys. Set in South Africa and told in Sheila Kohler's inimitable elegant and dark style of writing, it's the story of a swim team in a remote boarding school, a story in which the girls' "coming of age" doesn't turn out as expected.
Cracks is full of memorable characters, including an Italian princess, but most memorable is the shadowy 1st person narrator who somehow manages to be within the story but without at the same time.

Wonderful writing.
Creepy story.

Rating:
Summary: A quick but compelling read
Review: CRACKS by Sheila Kohler (Jonathan Ball, R109.95) This novel by former South African Sheila Kohler is hard to classify: it's part thriller, part sexual awakening ... and it has an extremely disturbing ending. There's a "Lord of the Flies" atmosphere in "Cracks": ominous, oppressive and subliminally erotic. I'm not sure if this is a book that you "enjoy" but it certainly is gripping. You simply have to keep turning the pages to find out what happened to the lovely swimmer Fiamma, whose mysterious disappearance as a teenager still has the power to bring together a very disparate group of former schoolmates at a school reunion. Only the swimming team has been summoned to the event, nearly 40 years after Fiamma's disappearance, and the novel delves back into the women's schooldays while also giving a picture of the (mostly unhappy) women they have become. It's fascinating stuff, with the writer showing a keen psychological insight into the psyche of rampantly hormonal teenagers, left mostly unsupervised, and their relationship with their gay swimming teacher, Miss G. What awful secret are they hiding? Will the reader ever find out? Do all of them even know? Kohler's fluid and yet precise manner compelled me to read on until the shocking denouement.

Rating:
Summary: A quick but compelling read
Review: CRACKS by Sheila Kohler (Jonathan Ball, R109.95) This novel by former South African Sheila Kohler is hard to classify: it's part thriller, part sexual awakening ... and it has an extremely disturbing ending. There's a "Lord of the Flies" atmosphere in "Cracks": ominous, oppressive and subliminally erotic. I'm not sure if this is a book that you "enjoy" but it certainly is gripping. You simply have to keep turning the pages to find out what happened to the lovely swimmer Fiamma, whose mysterious disappearance as a teenager still has the power to bring together a very disparate group of former schoolmates at a school reunion. Only the swimming team has been summoned to the event, nearly 40 years after Fiamma's disappearance, and the novel delves back into the women's schooldays while also giving a picture of the (mostly unhappy) women they have become. It's fascinating stuff, with the writer showing a keen psychological insight into the psyche of rampantly hormonal teenagers, left mostly unsupervised, and their relationship with their gay swimming teacher, Miss G. What awful secret are they hiding? Will the reader ever find out? Do all of them even know? Kohler's fluid and yet precise manner compelled me to read on until the shocking denouement.

Rating:
Summary: Good book marred by an unlikely ending
Review: Reading this book was like seeing several familiar elements mixed together in a new way. Lord of the Flies meets Picnic at Hanging Rock meets Walkabout meets the Wildfire Club. I found Kohler's portait of girl-crushes at a remote boarding school evocative and compelling. She uses setting well - the stiffling African heat followed by chaotic rain. I was also intrigued by the 2nd person plural narration, and by the fact that one of the characters shared the author's name. However! The ending - oh the ending. I didn't believe it for a second, not for those characters. It was as if the author felt she had to have something appalling up her sleeve for the book to be worth it or didn't believe that less graphic betrayals can be deeper and more believable.

Ultimately, I found this an intriguing novel, but I wouldn't wholeheartedly recommend it because of the disappointing ending.

Rating:
Summary: Sexually honest and disturbing
Review: Remember when you were a pre-teen. Were you curious about sex? Were you curious about other people's bodies?

This disarming novel focuses on the innocence and sexual curiosity of a group of pre-teen girls who find themselves in a strange situation when the outsider of the group mysteriously disappears. They knew that their swimming coach had a strange obsession with her, but was she responsible for the girl's disappearance? The ending will shock you. It is a disturbing and sexually honest novel about the age of innocence and curiosity. The novel is utterly original. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Tasteless, no literary merit, bad writing
Review: The novel had absolutely no literary merit. The very explicit images of female coach/14 year old girl having sexual relations was distastefully written. The novel was trying to piggyback off great novels, like East of Eden, but did an awful job. For a book of this nature to succeed, it needs a good author. I wish I had not read it.

Rating:
Summary: Puzzling
Review: this was possibly one of the strangest books i have ever read. it's kind of a female "lord of the flies", in a way. a bunch of school girls are competing for the affections of their swimming coach. they hate the coach's favorite, fiamma, and will do anything to dethrone her. kohler's prose is good, and i thought how she made herself a character was very interesting. but the story drags a bit towards the end and i found myself getting bored. the story was odd enough to keep my interest though.

Rating:
Summary: Diabolical !
Review: What evil lurks in the hearts of adolescent girls? Not exactly what you'd expect when you first open the covers of this book. On the surface it seems to be about some rich older women coming back to the boarding school of their youth for a reunion. It quickly turns into a reminiscience of some truly diabolical deeds committed by twelve young girls, their sexually depraved swimming coach, and their seemingly senile and doddering old headmistress. The ending was totally not what I expected; it kept me guessing right up until the last chapter. I won't spoil the story by telling you the rest of the plot, but I still had one question about where Fiamma (one of the main characters) had disappeared to when I finished reading the book. I went back to the very first couple of chapters and reread them immediately. In a very subtle way the answer is revealed on the first few pages! Oh, My, God! It makes you realize how truly evil these girls and their teachers were. The depth of what's really going on is astounding. This is a quick read, very suspenseful, and well worth your time.

Rating:
Summary: Diabolical !
Review: What evil lurks in the hearts of adolescent girls? Not exactly what you'd expect when you first open the covers of this book. On the surface it seems to be about some rich older women coming back to the boarding school of their youth for a reunion. It quickly turns into a reminiscience of some truly diabolical deeds committed by twelve young girls, their sexually depraved swimming coach, and their seemingly senile and doddering old headmistress. The ending was totally not what I expected; it kept me guessing right up until the last chapter. I won't spoil the story by telling you the rest of the plot, but I still had one question about where Fiamma (one of the main characters) had disappeared to when I finished reading the book. I went back to the very first couple of chapters and reread them immediately. In a very subtle way the answer is revealed on the first few pages! Oh, My, God! It makes you realize how truly evil these girls and their teachers were. The depth of what's really going on is astounding. This is a quick read, very suspenseful, and well worth your time.